1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to delivering wireless messages, and more particularly to preventing delivery of wireless messages outside of specified times.
2. Description of the Related Art
As message delivery to mobile phones, pagers, and other similar wireless devices becomes more commonplace, issues relating to time of delivery are becoming more of a concern. A particular wireless user, for example, may want to receive messages on his wireless device during business hours, but may be annoyed if he is interrupted by a wireless message during the evening or at night. In the interest of maintaining consumer goodwill, a wireless company may wish to prevent delivery of messages to this user during non-business hours, on holidays, or during other times that receipt of messages may be considered inconvenient.
Current delivery systems allow for an expiry time to be included with each message to be delivered, but because of the way in which most delivery systems are implemented, an attempt to deliver a message may be made even though the message has expired. Typical current delivery systems handle expired messages as described in the following example. Assume that delivering a message after five o'clock in the afternoon is undesirable, and so an expiry time of five o'clock is set for a particular message. If an unsuccessful delivery attempt is made at five minutes before five o'clock pm, the delivery system checks to see if the message has expired. If the message has not expired, and in this example it has not, the system schedules a redelivery attempt at some later time, for example six o'clock pm. At six o'clock pm, the system again attempts to deliver the message, even though the message has expired. If the delivery attempt is unsuccessful, the system again checks the expiry time on the message. Since the message has expired, the system does not schedule the message for another redelivery attempt.
As should be apparent from the above discussion, some current message delivery systems are not well adapted for providing messages to wireless devices only during specified times.